Looks like Apple killed userscripts in Safari?

Nightscotsman · September 23, 2019, 10:52pm

Last night I updated to the latest version of Safari on macOS and at the end of the process it said 3 of my extensions were no longer compatible. To my shock and horror I realized that TamperMonkey was one of them - crappity-crap-crap-crap! Trying to reinstall it just kept linking me to the Mac App Store where apparently all Safari extensions must now come from. I mean I get it - from a security standpoint third party userscripts are asking for trouble, but come on Apple - you could have given me some warning!

Since I neeeeeed my scripts for WaniKani, I just downloaded Firefox and installed the scripts there. So now I’ll use Firefox for WaniKani and Safari for everything else - the only minor annoyance being for some reason WaniKani’s interface colors on Firefox are noticeably brighter and harder to look at, especially the Apprentice pink.

I really much prefer Safari though, for a lot of reasons. Has anybody else run up against this with the latest version and maybe found a workaround?

seanblue · September 23, 2019, 10:55pm

I think it’s everyone using Safari 13. Looks like it’ll be a while until Tampermonkey is supported on Safari again.

github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey

[Safari] Tampermonkey as 'Safari App Extension' ?

opened 06:22AM - 05 Jun 18 UTC

closed 02:17PM - 15 Oct 19 UTC

filbo

enhancement

Hi, Apparently .safariextz style extensions are deprecated (but still operabl…e) in the upcoming Safari 12, and 12 is 'the last release to support them', so either Safari 13 or possibly 12.1(?) will completely drop them. See https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariextensions for details. The replacement schema is at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/safari_app_extensions/building_a_safari_app_extension, with supposed conversion doc at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/safariservices/safari_app_extensions/converting_a_safari_extension_to_a_safari_app_extension As far as I can tell, this is Apple's official 'we're getting out of the browser business, just shoot us now' announcement. Instead of adding support for WebExtensions (even borked support like in Edge), they're jumping a fleet of buses over an ocean of sharks, off into some weird Neverland where every browser extension has to have a bag-on-the-side MacOS native app attached to it. But I may be misreading. It's sure as heck presented like that, anyway. Be that as it may: Can authors of userscripts rely on any hope of Tampermonkey bridging over this ridiculous gap and continuing to work on Safari 13?

Nightscotsman · September 23, 2019, 11:19pm

So he is working on a new extension - there’s hope at least!

mztik · September 23, 2019, 11:45pm

I’m in the same situation: Firefox for Wanikani, Safari for everything else.

While this is really inconvenient for us end users, I can’t blame Apple. They announced the new platform for ‘Safari App Extensions’ back in June, 2016. Developers had more than 3 years to move to the new Safari App Extensions. I’m a developer as well, so I can understand the frustration of moving and adapting to new platform/technologies. There was ample time, however. Taking a look into github, there wasn’t much priority put into the extension for Safari browser until now. If only Violentmonkey would come in and save the day for Safari users…

carlostdev · September 24, 2019, 2:15am

Dang, I was intending to warn people not to upgrade to Safari 13 but searched first

It is too late

Wish I had read this first

Welp, back to Firefox for the time being

mztik · September 29, 2019, 8:04pm

An update from derjanb:

https://github.com/Tampermonkey/tampermonkey/issues/558#issuecomment-536183545

plantron · September 29, 2019, 8:09pm

I can blame WK for their over-dependency on other people developing userscripts.

mztik · September 29, 2019, 8:39pm

That’s not really what we’re discussing here, but I agree to some extent.

Nightscotsman · October 9, 2019, 10:00pm

UPDATE: According to the developer, TamperMonkey for Safari 13.x has been submitted and is in review

Nightscotsman · October 15, 2019, 7:57pm

Tampermonkey is now available for $1.99 on US App Store. Worth. It.

timfreilly · October 16, 2019, 7:26pm

Sweet! Purchased. Thanks for letting us know.

Nightscotsman · October 16, 2019, 8:36pm

There are still some problems with it. For example, the list of installed scripts will not load in the dashboard, causing the dashboard to be unusable. He’s aware of the issue and seems to be working on a fix.

UPDATE: He fixed the dashboard issue, but after the update none of my scripts would run. Turns out the Semantic-Phonetic Composition script was blocking all of them.